Sunday, March 8, 2009

I think I caught a few people off guard with this poll. For some reason or another a poll pertaining to a California surf punk band wasn't something a lot of people expected to see. Truth of the matter is, Agent Orange were one of the the very first punk bands I paid legitimate attention to.

Coming up as a skater in 1985, it was nearly impossible to not of heard of Agent Orange. They had their own deck on Vision and they appeared in Vision's classic "Skate Visions" video, plus they were constantly being covered in Thrasher Magazine. Once I saw their footage in Skate Visions and heard "Bloodstains" during some ramp jam footage, I was hooked.

The first Agent Orange record I bought was "When You Least Expect It" sometime around 1986. I had a paper route at that time and I would listen to a tape of that record every single day while I was out delivering those papers. Considering "When You Least Expect It" was only an EP, those songs went by super fast and I'd just end flipping the tape and listening to it all over again. As familiar as I was with the Jefferson Airplane song, "Somebody To Love", Agent Orange turned that song completely into their own and I've always loved their version. As a matter of fact, I've always loved this entire record. Every time I hear "Bite The Hand That Feeds (part 2)", I want to grab my board and skate as fast as I can down a long, smooth hill.

As much as I love "When You Least Expect It", I equally love "Living In Darkness", which made this a very tough poll for me to vote on. Every song on "Living In Darkness" is great and 23 years after first hearing it, I still listen to it regularly and it's still just as good as it was all those years ago. Apparently the majority agreed and "Living In Darkness" won this poll by a landslide.

When Ken Salerno saw this poll, he sent me over a pile of Agent Orange photos from one of their shows at Trenton's City Gardens. Funny coincidence... the photos he sent happened to be from the first show I saw Agent Orange , July 17th 1988 with Dag Nasty. Agent Orange and Dag Nasty were both great that night, but I'll never forget the pompadour on Agent Orange's bass player. My friend Tony and I were referring to the guy as "Slim Jim Phantom" from the Stray Cats, all night long. I probably spent a good deal of their set cracking up, but honestly, they were great and I'll never forget that show. -Tim DCXX

9 comments:

Funny how you were making fun of the bass player's pomp, but not Mike Palm's teased mullet. That hairdo makes me want to pretend the 80s never happened, but Agent Orange's music makes me glad they did.

I have seen these guys twice, and both times they were amazing live. The first album I got was This is the Voice around 1987, but I still voted for Living in Darkness. Tim is right, if you skated in the 80's these guys found their way into your tape deck at some point.

What features do you want to see more of on the new DCXX?

INTRO BUST

Welcome to DOUBLE CROSS - an online fanzine dedicated to the hardcore we love... past, present, and future. The goal is classic fanzine vibe and content, with stories, interviews, photos and more - updated every day through the week. While this might be a "blog," we want it to go beyond what that term typically represents.

And while we are undoubtedly straight edge and will put the best straight edge bands at the heart of this site, in no way does that mean we won't be featuring all of of our other favorite hardcore bands here as well.

Check out the below links for more info on us, as well as what we have been putting up here since beginning construction in March '08. Get in touch if you wanna contribute or just say what's up.X X XTim McMahon / Gordo

THANX:We would like to give thanks and credit to Ken Salerno, Tim Singer / Boiling Point, Dave Sine and all the other photographers that have graced the pages of Double Cross. We could not do this with out you, so thank you very much for your contributions.

Big thanks also to some of our regular contributors, people like Joe Nelson, Billy Rubin, Agent A, Tony Rettman, Jordan Cooper, Larry Ransom, etc. All have been huge assets to Double Cross and we greatly appreciate all your help, effort and time.

Also, we'd like to give thanks to Ed McKirdy over at Livewire Records for lending his help and support to this project.